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Duck update: Another take on Jonas Hiller's blunt comments

December 6, 2011 | 11:05
am

Under the guiding precept that it takes a goalie to understand another goalie …

Thought it might be a good idea to talk with Ducks' backup Dan Ellis, to get his observations on Jonas Hiller’s sharp words after Sunday night’s loss to Minnesota. Hiller, often, is quite honest but his recent comments were uncommonly blunt.

“He’s a competitor,” Ellis said. “He wants to win every single night and I’d much rather see a guy that gets ticked off than a guy that doesn’t care about losing.”

Ellis, who has been sidelined with a groin pull, came off injured reserve Tuesday morning. The Kings and Ducks play in Anaheim tonight, and the Ducks are attempting to win their first game in the Bruce Boudreau Era.

“It’s been a long season, so far and as a goalie you shoulder the brunt of a lot of the losses and stuff like that,” Ellis said. “You are the last line of defense.

“It’s an emotional game, and I think the last two games, we’ve had opportunities to win and we kind of squandered the leads for whatever reason, miscues and it gets frustrating.”

Ellis had some insightful perspective about the errors and recent woes. The Ducks, he says, are caught between the old ways and the new system.

“We’ve got the players if not better players than what they had there in Washington,” he said. “We’re fully capable of it as soon as we get a grasp of it.

“When we do implement his (Boudreau's) system, it seems to give us a little bit of speed, gives us puck support and creates some real offensive chances.

“When we get caught in between systems when we’re still kind of used to the old style, which was an effective system, but for some reason it didn’t work for us this year. When we’re in between, some guys are playing one system. Some another. Anytime that happens (there is) miscommunication and there’s going to be errors.”